The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-07-16


kindness in the deliverance of the Israel
ties from homeless wanderings and
in deliverance ''from the miseries of i'm
prisonment, from the death pains Of
sickness, and from the perils of sea-
voyage" He calls upon those who have
thus been delivered to express their
gratitude for such kindly providences;
for the blessing of renewed life, and
health and freedom. His injunction
to thankfulness for such experience is
properly put; we are not sufficiently
grateful for these every day testimonies
of the care-I may say the antecedent as
well as the present care-of the heavenly
Father; a care not newly determined
and casual, but exercised over us before
the world began, when the law of ma
terial, and social, and spiritual being
was impressed upon the universe. We
enjoy, because of the favor of our Gre
ator--Father. In the words of the
Children's Hymn:
IL was Our heavenly rdIneF 3 love
Brought every being forth"
The Book of Nature sets forth that
love in light, and song, and beauty.
The Book of Human Nature no less, if
we read it Alright.
But there are some who depreciate
the testimony of these. They see
dark side of nature and of human expe-
rience and they say that if light proves
the benefcence of natures God, dark
ness proves his malignity. They offset
against all blessing for which we are
enjoined to praise the Lord, the limita-
lions of blessing which proceed from
the necessary law of our being; and
maintain that such limitations prove
the want of goodness in the Giver, and
detract from the fatherly character
which Christianity ascribes to him.
When natural theology seeks to prove
the goodness of God by the glory and
beauty of the world, and the joys of
social and even physical life, they cite
the cheerlessness of winter; the ravages
of frost and flood; of volcano and earth
quake; of lightning and storm, of sick
ness and pain; of pestilence and death; of
fraud and social evil; of sin and misery.
And the Christian believers tooready to
regard these incidents Of nature and of
human life, not as ground for thanks
giving, but as mysteries to be resolved
in the light of the unfading day, when,
it is inferred, we shall recognize their
harmony with the love of the Heavenly
Father.
Referring to calamities which result
from the elemental forces of nature, I
may say that they are in no proper
sense sent upon mankind. They are
not retributive visitations. They are
not marks of Divine displeasure, nor
can they be attributed to Divine indif-
erence. They are parts of the neces-
sary machinery, without which the
world and man would cease to be. One
asked, during the Ohio flood of 1888,
"How is the damage by the flood to be
reconciled with the fatherhood of God?"
The first thought is that those who
suffer by such a natural occurrence are
mentioned in the Sermon on the Mount;
and the disaster is attributed, not to
Providence, or nature, but to man. We
read of the wise man, who built his
house upon the rock, and whom storm
and flood did not harm, for that reason,
because he had put it above the flood
foolish man who built his house upon
the sand, storm and flood wrecking it,
for that reason, because it had been put
below the flood line, on the river-bot-
tom. The Ohio floods were not sent
upon the homes and store-houses of the
people which were swept away or other
wise brought to ruin the homes and
storehouses Of the people were erected
in the way of the floods, which they
must have taken In order to reach the
great reservoir of waters. What would
you have? Such gatherings of the
waters had surely taken place many a
time and oft before man had set his
habitation along the beautiful river;
nay, before man had made his appear
ance among living beings; and would
you, because through ignorance or in
terest he chose to put his dwelling or
his store within reach of possible floods,
have suspended the law by which the
SHOWS melt, and the waters find their
way to the ocean? Would you have
the meteorological law, and that of
gravitation rendered uncertain, or a
constant miracle wrought to defend a
few persons from the consequences of
their own choice ? These consequences
cannot have been so very annoying,
when we find those once suffering by
the floods rebuilding upon or returning
to the very site of their untoward ex-
periences.
The laws by which such calamities
have been wrought, and those which
seem to be graver, as through volcanic
or electric disturbance, or wind or wave,
were written in the natura of fhinOa